IT'S NOT ABOUT THE WAR~ IT'S ABOUT THE WARRIOR

There are lessons to be learned in almost everything we do.  Some more poignant than others.  and then there are some that drip with emotion and meaning and beg to be written about, to bring back the memories and to share them. This was such a day. Jeremy took 16 bullets to save the life of his friend in Afghanistan. He had been hospitalized... for eight months at the VA Polytrauma. He never once complained or cried out in pain.  Not once.

 

He has endured more pain than can be imagined, with grace and courage, never knowing if he would have to lose a limb(s) or not. Today he was released.  His Army escort was there but no fanfare, no flags, no family, no nothing. He hugged and thanked the staff and then he took Kelsie's leash, and we escorted him out of the unit.  When we got off the elevator, he handed me the leash, hugged me and told me he loved us both and was so glad we had been there for him. Nothing would have kept us away on this momentous occasion.  Jeremy we love you, now and always. You are our hero. You have taught me about bravery, about endurance, and about smiling through the pain.  Because there is another side once you get through the tunnel. 

 

Remembering this young man, a quote by Marie Beynon Ray comes to mind. "Begin doing what you want to do now.  We only have this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand ~ and melting like a snowflake." Jeremy plans on volunteering his time to help troubled youth, volunteer in his church and continue with his education. 

 Jeremy's level of courage, that defies definition or description, is extraordinary.  But to Jeremy the answer is simple, yet demanding, as he begins his journey leading a worthy life of purpose, the best way he can.  No one of us can do more.  None of us should wish to do less. 

 

His story should capture the heart of Americans, for his story is unique and yet not so unique. As I returned to the unit, I glanced into his room to see staff disinfecting, cleaning, and making the room ready for the next warrior.  I swallowed the lump in my throat and moved on to the next room and the next wounded warrior.

 

 

DO YOU MAKE PEOPLE FEEL 'REAL'?

May Sarton wrote, " Most people have to talk so they won't hear."

 

 

 

When do you talk?  Do you talk to be heard, to be important, to be in control, or do you talk so you won't have to hear?

 

Interesting points to ponder!!  I am finding more and more that just being present and listening you learn much more about those near and dear to you than you would ever imagined.  Stop talking over, stop talking to, stop talking about, just stop talking.....and listen!

  

I believe that some people, many people, talk because they have never been heard.  They have always been talked to.  They have had to endure endless steams of words and more words, signifying nothing.  Words that take up space and time and are meaningless.  Words that are exhausting in both length and content.  Words that float around us like mosquitoes.  Words we want to swat out of the way.

  

I write. That's what I do.  I love it.  I write not so much to have anyone read it, but to provide myself with an outlet...an outlet where I can be heard.  An outlet where my words have meaning and an outlet where I have meaning.  I become 'real' when I write. 

 

Sometimes things get so muddled and blocked in our heads that we are seemingly stuck in quicksand.  We can't pull ourselves out no matter how hard we try.  When I feel like this I sit quietly and write.  I write and then write some more.  There are times then when I go back months later and read my words and hardly remember writing them. I think to myself, "Who wrote this?"  I have no memory of stringing these words together like beads on a thread. It is therapy.  It is movement forward, not backward.  It is a wide open space where I find out, and more importantly remember, who I am.

There is no need in interactions with people to fill all the empty spaces with words.  Sometimes not filling these spaces provides more help than anything.  We don't have to talk constantly.  Sure we all have to vent, get the feelings out, rant and rave but do people really want to have to listen all the time.  It disturbs their peace of mind, takes their time away from something they would rather be doing,  and if truth were known half the time we are thinking of something else and only half way listening.  

This is a lesson learned from the beautiful therapy dogs who have shared their lives with me and so many others...Casey, Penny, Gracie and now Kelsie.  They can listen.  They can tell by your tone of voice what you are telling them. They can tell by your face, the inflections, the emotion.  They comprehend and understand, and they never say a word.  Countless patients we visit, struggling to overcome insurmountable illnesses, need to talk to be heard.  Time may be short and no one is listening.  People feel obliged to talk and then talk some more, losing the opportunity to let that person become 'real'.  This doesn't help.  This hinders.  For it is only in our listening that we learn, that we find out the truth, the pain, the love, the loneliness, the fear, the emptiness of those we share our time with.

Remember being a little child, swimming for the first time.  "Mommy look, Mommy look, I am swimming." Did you nod approval and turn away and continue a conversation with someone else?  Or did you listen with pride and enthusiasm at what you were being told?  Were you present? Did you tell your child that he/she was important and that they were 'real'. 

AN HONEST CONFESSION

 

 

 

 

From a friend in Montana, Janet Austin, come these wise words: "Take chances, lots of them. Because honestly, no matter where you end up it always ends up just the way it was suppose to be. Your mistakes make you who you are and you learn and grow with each choice you make. Everything is worth it, say how you feel, be yourself and most importantly be okay with it!"

And as another friend told me recently, "Just be! It is okay, just be." So with his wise words, I offer to you the following in my attempt to be myself and more importantly to be okay with it. I trust you will understand.

 

Honesty time: I am sitting in my office surrounded by two of my four dogs. They are on their sides, lying in perfect peace. I can hear their breath go in and out and it provides me great comfort. For it is in the intake and the release...of breath that there is a space...a space where I find a very special kind of love and sensitivity and comfort. My dog, Kelsie is now with me almost every where I go, for you see I too have been diagnosed with PTSD.  I did not welcome this nor want it.  But a lifetime of great pain has finally caught up with me. Unrelenting stress, abandonment, and now extreme exhaustion has consumed my life for several months. 

 

I try to look at this as a blessing and a gift that has been bestowed upon me so that I may better understand what the warriors that Kelsie and I work with endure. It is hell, it is not something you can understand unless it has happened to you. But move forward we will, and we will continue to fight the demons, the nightmares, the flashbacks and the horrible panic.

 

Perhaps I will become a better writer.  Perhaps that book that is still in me is taking shape and will become real.  So I am trying to be grateful for this all too frequent hell. I have been hurt, repeatedly. I have been battered. I have been deeply injured by people who I thought were my friends and family. I like to say "I have been bended, folded, stapled and mutilated." The details are not important  to anyone but me.  But suffice it to say what I have endured consistently and continually over my lifetime has not been deserved nor invited. But it is what it is.  It is not the life I wanted, imagined or deserved!  I deserved much better.

 

But I tell you with pride because I will handle this.  It will make me a better person.  I can't take away what has occurred in my life, but I can learn to handle the repercussions differently...and better.  I can be grateful for those who love me, stick by me, and know the real me ... warts and all.  For them I say a heartfelt thank you.  For them I am forever grateful.  For it is these people who have always, and will always, be there for me that I learn the magic in the word 'love'.  Just a phone call daily or a quick instant message to let me know they are thinking of me, means the world to me.

 

Most of you know that I had a foundation, Penny's from Heaven Foundation, Inc. Penny is now wearing beautiful angel wings in Heaven.  For her, her beauty, her suffering, her love, her sensitivity and intuitive nature I am forever grateful and truly blessed.  For she offered to me, as have all of my dogs, those qualities which people would do well to imitate.  We do not live to hurt other people whether within our families or in the hell of combat in a war zone.  We live to experience all the joy and love of humanity that we can.  We live to be good, giving, understanding, and decent people.  We live to be the kind of person our dogs think we are. 

 

I have two beautiful wooden boxes on my desk both containing pennies found on the ground.  Many found in the most unusual places and under the most amazing and breathtaking circumstances.  But found always with a reminder of my Penny in Heaven and the goodness she shared and spread, and always telling me she is there and to be strong.. And most of all to remind me that no matter the circumstances, I shall remain who I am, remain true to myself, and to know without a doubt that I am, underneath the pain and panic, a really good person.

 

Kelsie will remain by my side for as long as possible.  When I can't take it anymore I sob into her fur and feel her absorb my pain.  Even when she is sleeping there is always awareness of where I am and her making certain I am okay.  When she sighs in the dark of night I know she is there, and I can toss out the bad thoughts and nightmares.  With her by my side and with my 'forever friends' I am truly blessed.  For those who have chosen to abandon me and my life, I wish them well.  I fervently hope someday they will grow to understand what real love is, what it is like to feel that love, when you need it the most and are afraid to take another step.  For when it is absent from those you felt were there for you...in quite simple English....it is unbearably painful.

 

So in closing today I ask you to visit KELSIE WISDOM OF A DOG on facebook and perhaps understand what a truly amazing gift I have been given.  Thank you all for following this blog.  More to come!  And thank you for allowing me to unabashedly share.  I am not embarrassed, not shy about telling you...because don't we all have something...some monster in the closet...that needs to be released.  Perhaps in releasing this one....things will begin to improve just a bit. As the quote at the beginning says, "I am just where I am supposed to be." 

 

 

 

THE MEDICINE WOMAN

She was soft and smelled like candied orange slices and then other times like coffee and sweet cream.  She would snuggle me in bed, holding me with a kind of love I never knew before nor after, and she taught me how to relax.  Whispering quietly, she would say, "Beginning with your toes, relax them.  Then relax your feet. Then your knees."  By the time she reached my tummy, I would be fast asleep, all curled up in her loving arms. It was here that nothing would ever hurt me, and I was safe.

She had a claw footed bathtub that she would fill with rose scented bubble bath and I would soak until I was all wrinkly and pink.  She would dry me off with towels that had hung on a clothesline and smelled of sunshine and warm grass and  then usher me to her feather bed.  There was a little soft light on my side table that glowed, highlighting the features of her tiny little bedroom. She always left it on all night so that I wouldn't be afraid.

Now looking back on it, it was at that time in my life when I felt for the first time what it was like to be loved and truly cherished.  My grandmother was the first woman pharmacist in Oklahoma City.  She had her own drug store and soda fountain. And she had a 'sap', with which she would swat the hands of shoplifters.  I still have the 'sap' and cherish it as I did and do her.

My fondest memories were of her sitting at her dining room table with her Smith Corona typewriter busy doing something 'grownup'.  Next to her typewriter was a crystal candy dish with the candied orange slices and a cup of coffee.  Occasionally she would pour me a dainty Dresden cup of warm milk and a little coffee and sugar.  And we would sit and talk, and she would tell me how much she loved me. I felt special and cared for and I felt like nothing would ever hurt me or change from the feeling I was feeling then.

There were special times I would visit her and she and I would sit on the floor in front of a cedar chest.  She would open it almost religiously and the fragrance of cedar would permeate the room.  Inside were packets of crinkled blue tissue paper that contained haunting memories for me that have remained to this day. 

She would take them out one at a time and gently remove the paper without damaging it. Inside each were treasures that belonged to another place and time and people.  Cherokee Indian hand beaded bags, sashes, tobacco pouches, blankets, and moccasins.  They mesmerized me.  She told me stories of how the Indians came into her drugstore and ask to trade these 'treasures' for tobacco.  She obliged and today my love of 'all things Indian' persists.  And my love of my grandmother lingers deep in the inner recesses of my being. 

I thank her for those moments that came and passed all too quickly.  I thank her for letting me know once upon a time what it was like to feel loved and to feel safe.

She passed when I was still quite young.  And I missed her terribly.  I still do. But I find myself thinking of her often, as my home is blessed with the Indian treasures she left me in the old cedar chest.  I have had them mounted and framed.  They are well over a hundred years old I feel quite certain. 

They warm my home and my heart.  And I could swear there are times when I can smell that sweet fragrance of candied orange slices and coffee, as I pass these pieces  of Cherokee history and of mine.

I often find myself trying to remember what it was like to feel loved and safe.  And then I remember my grandma, the love she lavished on me and the memories that will last a lifetime...memories that are like medicine to me that I pull out and unwrap much like the Indian treasures we opened and gently removed from the blue tissue paper. It is these memories I shall cherish and rely upon whenever I am feeling wobbly and unsure of life! She taught me to relax and to feel safe and warm and loved with her very special medicine. My grandma the Medicine Woman.

DEALING WITH YOUR DEMONS

From one of my favorite books, "It's Not about the Horse ~ It's about Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt" ~~ In it I have read and re-read, "Personally, I have a strong belief that the actual purpose of each and every union we make in this life is for healing wounds." Author, Wyatt Webb, goes on to say that 'as long as this is our mentality, we can't examine what's going on inside ourselves. Instead, we seem to want our relationships to fix whatever we perceive to be wrong with us.' Wise man in a great book.

 

When I read these words by Webb they really hit home! " I have a problem with this whole 'fixing' concept. In the first place, we are not broken ~ we're simply human." I rarely recommend a book, but this one is exceptional for those struggling to heal. Dealing with your demons isn't a walk in the park, but can be easier with a dog or even a horse. You instantly come to grips with who you are. I truly believe this. These animals show us the way.

 

Yesterday I was asked what should have been an easy question, "What do you want?"  Okay what do I want, peace, comfort, joy, trust, love, much like many of us.  I am not asking for a new car, clothes, the perfect house or the new IPAD.  But in the two seconds I had to respond I easily and honestly blurted out with tears stuck in my throat, "I want to be fixed."  I was looked at and heard, "How about the real response."  Without hesitation I said, "Okay I want to emerge a new person." Answer was "Now you're talkin'! "

 

The only way to emerge a new person is to let go of the person you have become.  Perhaps forced to become.  Not the person the world sees, but the person that is hidden underneath years of baggage and mistreatment and mistakes. Again I quote Mr. Webb, "I am not talking about slapping a Band-Aid on the past and letting it fester for another day.  I'm talking about really allowing ourselves to heal from the core of the internal trauma.  The more we can let go of the self-criticism, the higher the degree of healing will be."

 

So bottom line is we need to let go and clean up of the unfinished business in ourselves and in our family history. I think we all have this baggage to some degree or another.  But the question in my mind is exactly where do we start?  Where is the starting line?   

Perhaps it is today!

DAILY LESSONS IN HOW TO LIVE

~ "Begin doing what you want to do now. We only have this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake." ~ Marie Beynon Ray

 

Joe Duket said, "What has faded is already lost." I suppose to some degree we all think about the inevitable.  But we choose to set it aside, as some far distant day in the future.  As Gwendolyn Brooks said, "Conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind.  It's the last time we'll be here.  And although there is much work to be done and I'll try my best to do it, I still believe in chocolate cake and sunshine."

 

As do I! But I think I am sorely missing in the chocolate cake and sunshine category. The work part I have mastered!

But what is it you dream of?  What gives you goosebumps? What makes you gasp? I live with these questions daily.  I see my warriors struggling, as they share their stories of war with me.  Stories that capture my heart and make me remarkably sad with feelings of intense helplessness.  I guess to some degree I hear the words from them or their family members and they reflect back to me what I would do under similar situations.  Would I be brave, could I handle the pain, the not knowing, the uncertainty of it all? Who would be there for me?

 

I care deeply about their lives and their stories and always wish for the happy ending.  But happy endings don't always come, as so many live the remainder of their lives in quiet desperation. So with my therapy dog, Kelsie, we try to present a place where they feel safe and comfortable.  For I know without a doubt that we all need someone willing to go looking for us when we're lost.  To understand our fears, our tears. We all want to find our way home again.  The bottom line is how we deal with the tough stuff. What we care about.  What is at our center. And where exactly is home and with whom?

Perhaps it is as simple as learning to love.  Learning first and foremost to love ourselves and accepting nothing less than to be treated with admiration and respect. And then secondly, learning how to love others and learning how to be present for those, who much like you, have found periods in their lives when they just couldn't do it anymore.  If you are unable to do this, then perhaps for you, healing is where your story should begin.

C.S. Lewis wrote, "We tell stories to know that we are not alone." We all have our stories and it is up to us as to whether they have a happy ending or not.  This is obviously much easier to write or say than it is to implement. I am still trying to figure that one out.

For those times when we feel turned inside out and we want to run kicking and screaming from the insanity of it all, we need to find a way to regain some kind of control.  But at the time there doesn't seem to be any way to do that.  It seems unreasonable and unbearable.  We all have choices to change our lives at various points in time, and sometimes the best and only choice is to not make a choice. 

Choices can injure us. They can move us forward or they can stop us cold in our tracks and then ultimately consume us.  And then there are times when little graces find us abruptly and unexpectedly and our pathway becomes clear. It is at this time that life begins as well as the chocolate cake and sunshine.  

But it is wise to always remember that no dream comes true until you wake up and go to work on it. And never forget there are special gifts to be found in rainy days.

"If it doesn't absorb you, if it isn't any fun, don't do it." ~ D.H. Lawrence

 

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LIFE?

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LIFE?

 

There is a coziness not from a bubbling mountain stream or a sunset on the beach, but rather from a life lived ecstatically.  Sounds good in theory doesn't it?  But who can admit to living each and every day ecstatically? Certainly not me and probably not many of us.  Each new day, as in each new year, we look forward to a new adventure full of promise and fulfilled desires and dreams. But not too far into that new year, we are inundated and inculcated with the same stuff we hoped would never reappear. Then once again the dreams take a back seat.

We are not perfect.  And wouldn't it would be nice to think that in our imperfection we were to suddenly find we are perfect? This morning I would like to conjure up remarkable mental images and phrases that would drip with emotion and beg to be remembered as inspirational.  But they aren't coming. 

Sometimes we fill up the vessel of our consciousness with so much fluff and distraction and so much noise that we miss the whispers from the intuitions in our hearts that are there to guide us, to protect us and to lead us in the direction we are hopeful will find us thriving and happy.

I read recently that "the visible world is sustained by the invisible."  Think about this statement and what it might mean to you.  To me it means that we are dreamers who cannot let our dreams die. For then what would be the purpose? Dreams of that which makes our soul sing, our heart rejoice, and our very being purposeful. Our ideals live in us, just as our dreams are stored in a special place deep inside us where we hope one day to realize them.

 

"TO BE NOBODY BUT YOURSELF IN A WORLD THAT'S DOING ITS BEST TO MAKE YOU SOMEBODY ELSE, IS TO FIGHT THE HARDEST BATTLE YOU ARE EVER GOING TO FIGHT.  NEVER STOP FIGHTING." ~ ee Cummings

 

From The Book of Days: "There is no use trying" she said.  One can't believe impossible things.  I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen.  When I was your age I always did it for half an hour.  Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible thing before breakfast." ~ Lewis Carroll

 

So perhaps when things look bleak and you can't seem to break free and find the joy that should be your destiny and your right right, try believing in your dreams and you just might find yourself believing in six impossible things before breakfast. Never give up.  Work toward your dreams. They just might be closer than you think.  Look inside your heart and see if you can't find them there hidden underneath a smile you may not have used in a very long time.  A smile that is true and honest and not forced.

I end with a quote that seems most apropos to me today. "Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.  They are not only telling the secret of who you are, but more often than not of the mystery of where you have come from and are summoning you to where you should go next." ~ Frederick Buechner

 

Where do you want to go next? Where is your journey taking you?